The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
by SleepEasy
Summary: Meredith buys Derek the perfect present but isn't sure how different this Christmas is from last. Feedback is love! MeredithDerek oneshot


Shortly before Addison showed up she'd bought him the perfect present. Before Addison, before George, before having sisters, before drowning, before being - for all intents and purposes - an orphan. Before the dark and the twisty and the scary and the damaged she'd bought him the perfect present.

Christmas was still a few months away so it was maybe a little capricious (nowadays Meredith would call stupidly naïve) to buy it for him; but at the time, Meredith felt it was fate. It was fate that the one night stand who had made all her fears about becoming a doctor fade away in a haze of kisses and startlingly tender sex showed up at her new job the next day; and it was fate that the store that she never usually went in to, but went into that day to use their bathroom, just happened to be selling a Clash t-shirt signed by Joe Strummer.

It probably wasn't properly expensive enough to really qualify as an adequate boyfriend present, and she wasn't quite sure if etiquette would allow her to buy him something second-hand, but Meredith knew he'd love it. And besides, it was fate.

He wouldn't wear it in public. It would be their own private thing. He'd wear it to bed - her bed. (He always said he was cold but he warmed Meredith's body with his when he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him in the night.) They'd have little jokey arguments about it. She'd say that it wasn't supposed to be worn, (it can't be washed, the signature would fade) and he'd shoot back that presents are given to be used, not looked at. Especially first ever presents from your tiny girlfriend.

Meredith usually just puts gifts in a bag and staples them shut. She took great care in wrapping the t-shirt. She wasn't very well practiced and it took almost a whole roll of tape, but she wanted the perfect presentation for the perfect present.

When he chose Addison, she shoved the present in the back of her closet. Meredith has a special section in the back of her closet reserved for that type of thing. The things that are too painful to look at but too painful to throw away: the pine tree shaped air freshener from the night she and Joey O'Connor went All The Way in his car when she was sixteen, an old pregnancy test with the faded pink lines still just visible from the baby she aborted in college, and, later on, her mother's ashes.

Christmas finally rolls around and the present stays in Meredith's closet. As she sits under the far too festive tree with George, Izzie and Doc (God, _Doc_) she tries not to let herself think about how, had things been different, her feet might have been nudging the edges of Derek's t-shirt.

This year, they're something like together. He tells her he loves her. They have sex on a regular basis. But they both still volunteered to work on Christmas Day and neither of them like to think about what that implies.

She knows about the kiss with Rose, of course. After all, he's _Derek. _He's honest, and good, and he just wants her to be fully aware of the status of their relationship at all times and –

God, emotionally manipulative _asshole._

But still, she loves him. So when she's done with Bailey's surgery on they guy who impaled himself on fake reindeer antlers, she meets him in the on-call room. He kisses her when he walks into the room and with her back pushed against the wall and his fingers knotted in her hair Meredith knows she doesn't have to worry. Nothing with Rose could compare to this.

His hands have already moved to her stomach and are pushing up her scrubs top but she gently pushes him away.

"I bought you a present"

She watches the look on his face pass from pleasantly surprised, to smug, back to happy before finally settling on anxious and worried.

"I didn't get you anything"

"I didn't want you to. S and M only, until I say otherwise. Remember?"

They're both still playing that pathetic pretend game that she's the one in control.

She hands him the parcel and he unwraps it eagerly, like a child.

"Wow, a tie. Very…. Wow"

All traces of excitement and pleasure in his eyes and in his voice have vanished.

"You never can have too many ties"

"No, you're right, you can't. No, it's great. I love it. Thank you. C'mere"

With that, he takes her back into his arms. The tie is discarded on one of the bunk-beds and soon forgotten about as there and more kisses and scrubs are removed. Meredith can't help but think that the t-shirt would never have gotten the same treatment.

Maybe next year she'll feel ready to get it out of the back of the closet. Maybe next year.


End file.
